


It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

by bornquiet



Category: Star Trek
Genre: M/M, M/M/M, McSpirk HolidayFest, christmas shenanigans, i have a thing for jim and spock comforting bones, just imagine which universe you want, written with both aos and tos characters in mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 08:34:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5659726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bornquiet/pseuds/bornquiet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Can Jim, Spock, and the crew help Leonard find his holiday cheer before Christmas is over? How do you cheer up a perpetually grumpy doctor? What are Chapel and M'Benga planning anyway?</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the McSpirk HolidayFest 2k15 on Tumblr for the following prompt: "Leonard is a sad grump at Christmas and no one can figure out why. Cue the crew trying to improve his holiday spirit with Jim and Spock leading the efforts." There are some minor grammatical edits from the original submission.

“Ow!” Jim cries as Bones tightens a bandage harder than seems necessary. He ignores the doctor’s muttering about babies in favor of rubbing his arm and asking, “What’s your problem?”

“My problem, Jim? My problem? My problem is you! I swear, you’ve got to be in here at least once a week with some injury or other! Look at this arm! I can’t even use the dermal regenerator on it, how did you even manage that? I don’t know why you’re allowed in Engineering anymore, you wind up here every time you go down there! You’re like a bad penny, but worse! Always turning up bloody, with that ridiculous grin on your face, like it’s gonna stop me from being mad at ya! I don’t have time to deal with this shit, I have a Sickbay full of flu patients, but here you are. . .”

Jim narrowed his eyes as he watches his best friend continue to rant while patching up his arm. “No Bones, it’s more than that.” He raises his voice and points at Bones as the doctor opens his mouth to protest. “You’ve been a hell of a lot grumpier than normal lately, and I’m going to figure out why.”

“Now see here, Jim-“  
 “Nope, I’m going to get to the bottom of this! Are we running low on hypos for you to torture us with? Did you run out of bourbon? Wait. . . It’s Christmas, isn’t it, Bones? Bones!” Jim raises his voice even more as Bones walks away, exasperation radiating off him. He frowns when Bones’s office door closed with an implied slam behind the doctor. Clearly something needs to be done. He grins as he hops off the biobed and uses his freshly bandaged arm to comm Spock. His boyfriend will certainly know how to cheer Bones up, Vulcan stoicism aside.

~~~

“Alright!” Jim claps his hands from his position at the front of his rather crowded ready room. He had called together the alpha bridge crew, along with Dr. M’Benga and Nurse Chapel from Sickbay. He hoped that Bones’s friends would be more of a help in coming up with ideas for cheering the man up than Spock had been. “The first meeting of Operation: CBXG is now called to order!”

“CBXG, Keptin?”

“Yes, Chekov, it stands for ‘Cure Bones’ Xmas Grumpiness.”

“I see what you did there, Captain!” Sulu grins as he leans forward in his chair. “But why couldn’t you name it CBCG?”

Jim gapes at his helmsman. “That sounds so boring-“

“Captain, we need to conclude this meeting in exactly five point two six minutes in order to avoid detection by Doctor McCoy.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I was there when we planned it, remember?” Jim winks at his first. They had argued extensively over when to have the meeting and who to invite, which of course meant extensive time having hot make-up sex. Jim loved arguing with Spock now that the making up included a lot less apologizing and a lot more blowjobs. “So! As I’m sure you’ve noticed, the good doctor has been unusually moody of late, even for him. Christmas is in three days. Our mission is to figure out why he’s so moody and fix it so he becomes his regular grumpy self in time for Christmas.”

“Have you tried asking him, Captain?” Uhura inquires with a raised brow.

Spock looks up from the PADD in his hand. “Nyota, I can tell you from my own personal experience that asking Doctor McCoy why he is overly emotional at a time like this is unwise. It will in fact cause him to yell and create a scene.”

“Which is why,” Jim interrupts quickly before Uhura can do more than glare at Spock. “We are going to have to figure it out ourselves. Any ideas? Anyone?” Absolute silence falls in the room.

Jim sighs, but before he can say anything, Uhura pipes up. “Christmas is a time for family. I bet he’s missing his daughter.”

Jim beams at her. “I knew you’d pull through, Uhura! That sounds exactly like something Bones would do, and definitely something he needs. Arrange to have Joanna call him sometime tomorrow. We can surprise him!”

“We could dress up as elves and cheer up the patients in Sickbay! The flu has been going through Stellar Cartography. What doctor doesn’t like happy flu patients? We could make them cookies and sing carols!” Chekov’s speech comes faster as he gets more excited about his idea. “I know the kitchens have the ingredients for cookies! And we could get some green felt from Requisitions-“

Jim stops him with a hand on his shoulder, a look of awe on the captain’s face. “That is perfect Chekov! You and Sulu get started on that right away!”

“Captain,” Spock starts, a look that almost verges on alarm on his face, “I must advise you against this-“

“Nonsense, Spock, he’ll love it! Chekov’s right, what doctor doesn’t love happy patients?”

Uhura begins to laugh as Chapel and M’Benga simultaneously reply, “Doctor McCoy.” M’Benga adds, “He always says that if the patients are miserable, they’ll be more careful so they won’t have to come back.”

“Jim, just because you enjoy Ensign Chekov’s idea does not mean that Doctor McCoy will feel the same way.”

“. . . I suppose you’re right. Keep that idea on the backburner though, Chekov, Sulu. You never know, right? I am going to throw together a formal Christmas Eve party, that I expect everyone here to attend. Before you protest! Bones has always told me how much he misses the parties he went to when he was a kid growing up in the South. He’ll love it. Think of it as a chance to show off how hot you all are in formal dress!” The groaning only gets louder at that statement.

Spock says, “That idea has merit. I will help you plan it.” Jim scoffs, but nods anyway. He’s never had to plan a party before. He figures there is probably more to it than putting out the booze. Especially for a formal Christmas party.

“Alright. Chapel, M’Benga, what’s your plan for helping Bones find his Christmas cheer?”

Chapel and M’Benga exchange a look, slow smiles growing on their faces. Chapel glances towards Jim and Spock, and her smiled turns predatory. “Oh, our plan is a surprise. Trust me, he’ll love it.”

“O-Okay. . .” Jim stammers, suddenly afraid. Clearly Bones is rubbing off on his staff, they are starting to become nearly as terrifying as he is. He is not entirely sure why he should be afraid, but he has a feeling that it’s an appropriate reaction. “Let’s get to work then.”

The crew left, chattering excitedly. Jim smiled as he watched them go. Bones had come to Starfleet Academy with no friends and no hope. Now he had so many friends. Soon he would have hope. He and Spock sat down to plan this party.

~~~

He had been right. There was a hell of a lot more involved in planning a party than putting out Scotty’s alcohol and having a good time.

“Why do we need invitations again? Everyone who’s coming already knows about it. Except Bones, but we can just drag him there.”

“Because,” Spock explained patiently for the third time, “you insisted that this be a formal Christmas Eve dinner. According to my research and the conversation we had with Lieutenant Uhura, invitations are required. Also required is a specified start time, a scenic location, a menu of at least three courses of traditional Christmas food, wine, although we will have to make do with other forms of alcohol, and the exchange of presents. We must decide on a time and location, create the invitations, plan the menu with the chef, acquire the drinks, and make sure we both have presents for all of the invitees.”

Jim flopped down on the couch. “We already have presents, we can just ask Scotty to take care of the alcohol, I’ll take care of the food, I have a plan that I’ll need your help with, obviously the party will be on the observation deck, and we can start the party right after alpha shift tomorrow. All that leaves is the invitations.” He groaned. “What a nightmare. Bones is lucky that we love him.”

“Yes, we do love him.” Jim shot up at Spock’s quiet affirmation. He stares at Spock as the Vulcan continues typing party plans onto a PADD. That sounded almost like. . . He smiled softly as Spock raised his eyes to meet Jim’s gaze.

“You too huh?”

“Yes, Captain. I hold romantic feelings for the doctor as well.” Jim gets up off the couch, sadness and understanding on his face. He pulls the PADD out of Spock’s unprotesting fingers, puts it on the table, and curls up in his lap. Spock holds him, one hand carding through his hair, as they share love through their bond. After a few minutes, he picks up the PADD again.

“So! Invitations. What should we put on them?”

 

~~~

Jim walked into Bones's quarters in time to hear Joanna say, "Bye Dad! I love you!", followed by the sound of the comm disconnecting. Bones sat back in his chair, sporting the first smile that Jim had seen out of him in a couple of weeks. It was one of his special Joanna smiles, one that made him look about five years younger. Seeing those smiles had always been a special treat for Jim, and he's glad to be faced with one now. Hopefully now that Joanna has softened Bones up, he'll accept Jim's proposal, and then Christmas can be happy for everyone.

"Hey Bones! How's my favorite girl?"

Bones groans good-naturedly. "I wish you'd stop calling her that. She spent a full ten minutes talking about you non-stop. And then another ten minutes talking about Spock. I almost fell asleep." He got up and walked over to pour himself and Jim a bourbon. They settle down on the couch in Bones’s living area and sit in silence for a moment, enjoying the company and the bourbon.

It’s not long before Jim starts to squirm. He knows Bones likes the quiet, but he really needs to ask him to. . . no, invite. Invite him to the party. At the same time, he’s not sure how to approach it. He was actually nervous. That was new. Fortunately, or not, Bones is there to give him a hand, just like always. The doctor heaves a sigh before turning to Jim and asking, “What now?”

“What now? What do you mean what now? I didn’t do anything before!” Jim thinks that Bones should thank him for the lungs of steel all of his sighing has given him.

“No, you didn’t, but Chekov and Sulu were eyeing me and giggling suspiciously at breakfast. Then Scotty came to Sickbay to give me some certificate saying that none of the engineering department would get injured until New Year’s as a Christmas present, which was quite frankly a ridiculous promise. Especially because the head idiot himself came in an hour later three sheets to the wind with a burned hand! How exactly did he expect to avoid injury if he was working drunk! The man is brilliant, but he musta been absent the day God handed out common sense, kind of like a certain captain I know.” Jim lets out a cry of protest, but Bones just shakes his head and keeps going.

“Then I get off shift to find Uhura in my room setting up a comm, which she is incredibly vague about. And it turns out to be Joanna. Which is great and I’m not complaining about that part, but this day has just gotten too weird. And now you’re in here squirming like you do when you got something to say. So spit it out.”

Bones punctuates his monologue with a shot of bourbon, which he promptly chokes on as Jim blurts out, “SpockandIarethrowingaformalChristmasEvedinnerI’mheretoinviteyouto.”

“What?” Bones coughs out once he can breathe again.

Jim abruptly realizes that the reason he’s nervous is because it feels like it did the first time he asked Spock out. Weird. It’s not like he’s asking Bones out or anything. He takes a deep breath, shakes the feeling off, and tries again. “Spock and I are throwing a formal Christmas Eve dinner that I’m here to invite you to.” He pulls out the invitation and shows it to Bones.

“No.”

Jim gapes. “But Bones, you’re always telling me about southern Christmas Eve parties and how amazing they were and how much you miss them!”

Bones eyes him incredulously. “Clearly I’ve been drinking too much if I’m telling you I liked those damn parties. Either that, or I’m running out of things to complain about. Those parties were stuffy and the food was bad and always full of people who only pretended to like each other.”

“Well this party won’t be. I handled the food, so you know it’ll be delicious. And it’s going to be full of your friends from here. I’m pretty sure that everyone likes each other here, I mean even Uhura only pretends to be annoyed at me these days.”

“I suppose you have a point there. Answer’s still no.”

“Not even for a bourbon pecan pie?” Jim bats his eyelashes. “Spock’s making it from scratch.” Jim was a disaster in the kitchen, he didn’t have the patience or the exactitude necessary for baking. Spock, however, had plenty of both, and everyone loved it when Jim or Uhura convinced the Vulcan to make something in the kitchen.

“. . . There’s no way you have non-replicated bourbon. I would know about it.”

“What, do you have a bourbon radar or something? Of course I have non-replicated bourbon. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion.” Jim winks. He knows he has his fish on the line now. Now to pull it in. “And Scotty’s agreed to provide the rest of the drinks.”

That gives Bones pause, Jim can see it. A lot of people on the ship, Bones included, are having difficulty balancing having to ration alcohol with having a good time, and most are running low at this point. Even the shit Scotty comes up with in his not-so-secret still is better than replicated alcohol, and Jim knows for a fact that Scotty has a few spare bottles of the good stuff that he is planning on bringing to the party.

“Fine.” Hook, line, and sinker. “But there better be an entire pie just for me.”

Jim laughs and downs the rest of his drink. “Whatever you want Bones.”

~~~

After giving the bridge to beta shift on Christmas Eve, Jim and Spock head to Sickbay. Bones had agreed to come, but Jim wanted to escort the guest of honor and make sure that he actually came. They arrived to find Nurse Chapel taking care of one of the last flu patients. Jim stopped next to her. “How are your patients today, Nurse? Will everyone be well for Christmas?”

“Actually, Captain, yes! The nurses are calling it a Christmas miracle.”

Jim hears a snort from the direction of Bones’s office, followed by a “Christmas miracle, my ass.” He turns to find the doctor in the doorway. He smiles as Chapel muffles laughter behind him. “Bones! Is curing my crew my Christmas present this year? How thoughtful of you!”

Bones rolls his eyes. “What are the two of you doing down here? Aren’t you supposed to be preparing for a party or something?” he asks as Jim and Spock approach him.

Jim opens his mouth to reply, but before he can, Chapel clears her throat. “Captain? Commander? You should look up.”

Jim stares at her, mystified, as he hears a “What in tarnation?” from behind him and Spock looks up. Jim’s gaze follows Spock’s, and his look of confusion turns into one of glee as he spots what she is referring to. His crew are brilliant and Chapel and M’Benga are so getting commendations out of this. He and Spock look at each other, Jim grinning, and then approach Bones as one. Bones is frozen in place, eyes wide as he stares at the mistletoe placed right outside his office door and above his head. His head snaps down as Jim and Spock move towards him, and Jim nearly laughs out loud at the look of panic on his face. Bones tries to back up, but he had already closed and locked his office door in anticipation of leaving. His eyes get, impossibly, wider.

“Now, w-what do you two think you’re doing?” The question was clearly supposed to be menacing, but the frankly adorable stutter and the look on Bones’s face make it significantly less so, and Jim can’t help but want to kiss the silly man in front of him. He leans in, holding one of Bones’s arm while Spock holds the other, and they both brush their lips against Bones’s cheeks.

Jim had expected sparks, like his first kiss with Spock. After all, he loved both of them with everything he had, and he had wanted to kiss Bones for nearly as long as he had wanted to kiss Spock. But there were no sparks. There is only a simple feeling of rightness settling into his bones, a feeling that said ‘home’. He looks over Bones and sees Spock with a look of awe on his face that must mirror the look on his own. Then he looks at Bones, who has gone completely silent. His mouth is open in a silent ‘o’ of surprise, and he looks. . . well, he looks like Jim had the first time Spock had initiated a kiss.

The realization hits Jim like a punch to the heart. He looks to Spock, eyes wide, and sees the same knowledge mirrored in his boyfriend’s eyes. Jim smiles as Bones begins to sputter.

“Nurse Chapel,” Jim says, his smile slowly turning devious as he watches Bones sputter himself out, “the good doctor here is looking far too stressed to enjoy the party. Give everyone our regrets, would you?”

Chapel grins. “Aye, Captain!”

“Wh- Jim! What are you doing! Chr- Spock! Let go of me!”

“Leonard,” and oh does Jim love the look on Bones’s face as Spock calls him by his given name for the first time, “it seems you have become over-excited. Allow Jim and I to escort you to your quarters. . .”

~~~

Chapel and M’Benga exchange knowing smirks as they watch Dr. McCoy walk around Sickbay on Christmas Day, whistling ‘It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year’. Chapel turns back to loading hyposprays as M’Benga leans against the counter she’s working on. “He looks so happy now,” he remarks.

Chapel’s smirk softens into a smile. “He deserves it. He’s been so lonely lately, and the way he looks at them behind their backs. . . well I guess he doesn’t have to look that way anymore. We did good work.”

M’Benga watches Dr. McCoy dance around Sickbay checking the biobed sensors. “Yeah. We did at that.”


End file.
